


let it all come right in

by mikkary



Category: Critical Role (Web Series)
Genre: Drinking, Drunkenness, Gen, Hurt/Comfort, Implied/Referenced Character Death, beau makes a promise, caleb is really bad at comforting people but he tries, the empire kids are disasters
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-01-01
Updated: 2019-01-01
Packaged: 2019-10-01 19:40:27
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,181
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17250185
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/mikkary/pseuds/mikkary
Summary: They’re back in Zadash and Molly has been gone for almost exactly three weeks. Beau knows she shouldn’t, but she gets drunk anyway.





	let it all come right in

**Author's Note:**

  * For [TheCatfish](https://archiveofourown.org/users/TheCatfish/gifts).



The sun is setting by the time that she and Caleb leave the Archive of the Cobalt Soul, and Beau's whole body hurts. She’s still shaken by the techniques Tubo used on her today, by his almost terrifying ability to compel her to speak the truth. His questions brought up things that she would rather not think about, and she's silent and sullen on the long walk back to the Leaky Tap. 

Caleb is also silent. He isn't great company at the best of times, and now his quiet presence beside her is almost irritating. Everything is irritating — the occasional loose cobblestones in the city street, the people ahead of them walking too damn slow, the way night falls slowly and then all at once and they have to navigate the Pentamarket in the dark as the shops close up for the night. 

"Fuck," Beau says as she dodges a man carrying three empty crates at once, stacked so high that he can barely see where he's going. 

" _Shit_ ," she says as she stubs her toe on another cobblestone right outside the Leaky Tap and nearly trips, because the universe can't even let her end one day here without looking like an idiot. 

Caleb glances sidelong at her. "Is everything alright, Beauregard?" 

"Fuck off," Beau says, which is basically a no. It's getting cold too, even here in Zadash, now that the harvest is long over. The cold is frustrating too, because it reminds her of traveling north, of the first snowfall of the year, when snowflakes landed on Molly's lips and lashes and didn't even melt because he was— 

Because he was— 

Every time she remembers it, she gets sick to her stomach. It's been nearly three weeks, and Beau thinks about it every fucking day. Sometimes it's in her dreams. Sometimes it’s a passing thought and it’s almost forgettable, almost alright. Sometimes it's moments like right now, where the cold will remind her of the snow and the snow will remind her of— 

"I'm gonna get drunk tonight," Beau declares. She's been getting drunk a lot lately, but not nearly as much as she needs, because she never gets drunk enough to make things better. 

Caleb raises his eyebrows but doesn't press. At least he's good for that. "Okay," he says. 

Beau leads them across the threshold into the Leaky Tap, where the warm, cheerful atmosphere is even more annoying than the darkness outside. She hunches down against the warmth, the light, the weight of other people's happiness, and wonders if this is how Caleb feels whenever he walks into a room. Wonders if that's why he shrinks down and tries to make himself invisible. 

They claim a corner table, just enough in the darkness to make both of them happy in their respective miseries. Beau drains her first drink in a matter of minutes and orders another. After that one is done, she switches to liquor. 

Caleb is still nursing his first tankard of ale, reading a book and petting Frumpkin in his lap. "You should perhaps eat, Beauregard," he suggests, not looking up. 

"Fuck off," she says again, but the next time she goes up to the bar to order another drink she gets a tray of bread and cured meats for both of them to share. When she comes down, placing the food firmly in the middle of the table, she says, "Where's Nott and Jester, anyway?" 

"They are up to some mischief," Caleb says, his eyes remaining on his book. "I did not ask too many questions." 

"Probably for the best," Beau says, but she wishes that Jester, at least, was here with her sunny cheer that always helps to take Beau's mind off the shittier things in life. Jester is good at looking on the bright side. Jester is good at... at leaving everywhere better than she found it. Like Molly is— like Molly was. Not like her or Caleb or Nott, shitty people who don't know how to stop being shitty long enough to save their friend. 

Her throat seizes up and she slams back a gulp of whatever liquor the bartender gave her this time — whiskey, it turns out, that burns all the way down her throat. But it helps keep that tight, awful feeling at bay. Beau swallows hard. "I learned something cool today," she says. 

"Ja?" Caleb asks. His eyes are still in his book. Beau wants to snatch it out of his hands and throw it into the hearth. She wants to throw their charcuterie plate across the room, flip over the table, break it with a single strike. Beau's anger, frustration, guilt, is like a whirlwind inside of her, and she's spent so much of her life holding it back. You'd think it would be easy by now. It isn't. That’s the joke — things like that don't get easier with time. 

"Yeah," she says, and there must be something desperate enough in her tone to make Caleb finally, finally look up from his book. Frumpkin looks up too, like he's attached to his master by invisible marionette wires. "I learned how to punch people and like, make them tell the truth. With my fists. Pretty cool, huh?" 

Caleb raises his eyebrows and looks mildly impressed. He also looks like he's assessing Beau for signs of drunkenness or, or whatever, and that makes Beau want to punch him. She grabs a piece of bread and starts tearing it into pieces, instead. "That is very cool," he agrees. "Beauregard—" 

"I don't wanna talk about it," Beau says immediately, and Caleb closes his mouth, getting the message. He keeps his eyes on her though, not quite making eye contact, and Beau’s resolve weakens under his steady gray-blue gaze that's directed somewhere around her right shoulder. She looks down, finishes her drink and makes a face at the strong taste of alcohol. She's had... how many so far? Two ales and... what, four glasses of whatever liquor the bartender wants to give her? She drank fast enough that it's only catching up to her now, and it loosens her tongue. "Do you ever, like, think about it?" she asks before she can think better of it. 

"Think about what?" Caleb asks, and Beau remembers that he’s got a lot of _its_ to keep track of. 

"About... about Molly," Beau says and feels suddenly, crushingly pathetic about how Jester and Nott can go have fun, Fjord can go look for things on his own, Caleb can sit here and read a book... and she has to drink and be miserable. She's never had a friend killed in front of her before, though. Really, she's never had friends. "It's been three weeks. Feels like longer." It feels like no time at all. 

Caleb looks down again and before Beau realizes it, Frumpkin is hopping onto the table, walking daintily across their charcuterie plate, and hopping into her lap. 

"What?" Beau says when she finds herself with an armful of cat. Frumpkin butts his whole face against Beau's chest and arms until she shifts to start actually petting him. His purr is a deep, loud rumble in his throat and... it's nice. It helps. 

She's almost forgotten the question she asked when Caleb finally answers. "I think about it often," he says, staring at Frumpkin rather than her. "I replay the battle, our plans. What we could have done better." 

Beau stares at Frumpkin too, because that's easier than seeing the guilt on Caleb's face, where it sits so well. "Yeah," she says. "It was a shitty plan." 

Wordlessly, Caleb pushes his tankard across the table towards her. It's more than half full, but Beau knows it isn't really about the drink — it's about the show of effort, the willingness to comfort her with gestures, if not with words. Jester would have hugged her. Fjord might have, too. Right now though, filled with anger as she is, Beau prefers this hands off kind of comfort. She runs a hand down Frumpkin's back and takes a few gulps of Caleb's ale. The alcohol makes the lights in the Leaky Tap a little warmer, a little brighter. It takes the edge off her sorrow but in doing so, makes her realize what a vast and empty hole there is now in their group. In her life. She swallows. "I've never— I've never had anyone die on me who I actually liked," she admits. 

Caleb glances up at her, looks down at his book again even though he's clearly not reading. "You are lucky," he says but his words are hollow. It's a shitty reply and this is a shitty, shitty kind of luck. 

Beau downs some more of the ale, and then grabs a piece of bread to shove into her mouth because if she keeps drinking like this, she's going to end up getting sick. It tastes like sawdust in her mouth. Maybe she'll get sick anyway. "Does it get easier?" she asks with her mouth half full. 

"It should not get easier," Caleb says, the words directed at the pages of his book rather than at Beau. "What kind of person would you be if it got easier?" 

It sounds like something Caduceus would say. Fuck, it sounds like something Molly would have said, and Beau isn't sure how that makes her feel — better, or worse, or what. She eats a piece of sausage though, chewing and swallowing before she finishes the rest of Caleb’s ale. 

Caleb glances at her again, that familiar and annoying assessing look in his eyes. "Another?" 

Beau considers it. "If you get one for yourself," she says, since she did technically finish all of Caleb’s drink. 

"Ja, okay," Caleb says and stands, leaving Beau alone with six empty glasses, a mostly uneaten plate of cured meats and bread, and Frumpkin. She wonders what Jester and Nott are up to. She wonders whether Fjord has found what he’s looking for. She wonders if Caduceus is still sitting in the park, under his tree, lost and alone in the city, if Yasha is doing well, wherever she is. 

She wonders how cold it is up by Shady Creek Run, if Molly’s coat is still there, fluttering in the wind. If things will grow there in the spring when the ground thaws. If Molly will come back somehow. If Lucien or Nonagon or whoever will come back. 

"Mrr," Frumpkin says when Beau stops petting him, and he butts his head against her chest again. 

"Fuck off," Beau says thickly, but she gathers Frumpkin into her arms and presses his face into his soft, thick fur for just a moment. Frumpkin’s chest vibrates with his purring. It’s a soothing noise, and a warm sensation, and she just wants to cry like she hasn’t since she was a little girl and realized that no one would come to her no matter how loud she sobbed. People would come to her now, though. She has friends. And— and she’s in the middle of a fucking tavern and it’s not even midnight. She swallows down her tears, and is concentrating so hard on not making a fool out of herself that she doesn’t even hear Caleb come back until he places both tankards on the table. A moment later, Beau feels a cold hand on her shoulder. Caleb rests it there for a few moments, then gives her shoulder a comforting squeeze. Then he lets go and Beau hears him sit down. She lets out a long breath and finally straightens up, and Frumpkin, probably tired of being smothered, hops up onto the table and returns to his master. 

There are two full tankards of ale on the table. Caleb has his book on his lap again. Beau clears her throat. "Thanks," she says, her voice a little gruffer than usual. 

"You’re welcome," Caleb says, his voice more awkward than usual. But the silence between them is more comfortable than before. 

Beau wipes the back of her arm across her eyes and grabs the tankard, taking a big drink. It doesn’t get easier. It shouldn’t get any easier. But you fall down and then you get back up. You keep moving forward. 

Molly would have wanted them to keep moving forward. 

It could have been the booze, it could have been Frumpkin, it could have been Caleb’s hand squeezing her shoulder. Whatever it was, Beau isn’t quite as raw and angry as she did a few minutes ago. She sees a way through this. And maybe tomorrow will be worse. But maybe tomorrow will be better. Maybe she can _make_ tomorrow better. 

"At least we can try and make him proud, huh?" Beau says with a sort of grin. 

Caleb looks up and actually meets her gaze, if only for a moment. “Ja. We can do that.” He still looks distant, still looks like he’s not sure he can keep any promises he makes. Like he’s not sure whether he wants to. 

That’s okay. Beau can keep a promise for both of them. She finishes her drink. 

**Author's Note:**

> Title from "I Am Here" by P!nk, one of the songs on Marisha's [official Beauregard playlist](https://critrole.com/mighty-nein-playlist-beauregard/).
> 
> I'm eternally grateful for this prompt (and this fic exchange in general) for giving me the motivation to write the kinds of fic I've been wanting to write for ages! Merry Critmas and a happy New Year. :)


End file.
